Rating a Government Employee’s Work

I’ve posted previously on how easy and smooth the process of obtaining a power of attorney (tawkeel) is in Kuwait and you can check that post [Here] After experiencing that department three more times since that post I have to say, I think they one of the best-run government departments I’ve experienced anywhere, not just Kuwait.

Every time I ship my car to Bahrain for a track day, I tend to get a new POA done because the car transportation company tend to send a different driver every time. Last week the transportation company actually asked me to do a POA for 16 of their drivers so that way I don’t have to keep getting a POA done every time. 16! So I headed to the Ministries complex in the city and I was honestly a bit worried. I thought when the government employee sees I need a POA done for 16 people he’s gonna either give me a hard time, tell me to f off or at the very least just complain about how much work that was. But surprisingly, the government employee didn’t even flinch.

As I’ve mentioned in my original post, getting a POA done in Kuwait is a very quick and efficient process. The department is well organized and well staffed so I tend not to wait more than 10 minutes for my turn. The government employees are always helpful and their work environment just seems to be very healthy based on what I’ve observed. So when I handed over 16 identification cards to the employee and told them I needed a POA done for them, I braced myself for the worst. But, the employee just took the photocopies and proceeded to type out all the information into the computer without hesitation. When everything was done and I just needed to get my papers stamped from another desk on the way out, the employee gave me a feedback form to fill.

Not only is this department so well managed and run, they actually give you a feedback card to fill up once you’re done! Obviously, I ticked all the “Excellent” boxes and when I handed the feedback form back to the employee they told me I needed to hand it to the person who’s gonna stamp my papers on the way out. I realized that made sense since you wouldn’t want to hand back the form with negative feedback to the employee you just had a negative experience with or they’ll just get rid of the form. I love this department.

Why isn’t the driving license renewal department not run by the same guy that’s in charge of the POA department!?? I’m actually not aware of any government department in Kuwait that even care about how your experience was let alone ask you to critique them. At the airport in Bahrain they have these smiley faces at various points around the airport asking you how your experience was. They have these faces after check-in, after passport control, after security check and even in the duty-free asking you how your shopping was. They’re not unique to Bahrain, they have them at various airports around the world but last night while leaving Bahrain I was thinking, if we had these stations at various government offices and departments, what would people click on the most? The POA department is the only one I could think of that would get the big smiley button press from me every time.